Comradeship // Freechat

I empathize a lot with what you and others have said. Understand that some people are better at organizing in real life (and we always need more of those). But you gotta recognize your strengths and your limits too. Some of us are just better at educating and organizing online. The stuff we share with each other here gets dispersed in our conversations offline. That is still activism. Especially in the imperial core. Every conversation you have about communism is a brave thing to do and comes with personal risks -- whether that be your job, your friendships, your family, your livelihood. We're not at the point where people are randomly being imprisoned for thought-crimes yet, but we may be headed in that direction. Simply educating people where you can is still a courageous thing to do.

I have adhd, depression, etc. and I have also taken a back seat from being present in spaces. I've gone through the phase of being disappointed in myself for not "doing more." I forget sometimes that what I have is technically a disability and I need to treat myself with grace. What ultimately helped me was recognizing just how limited we are by our circumstances and by taking stock of all of the people in my circle that have been radicalized or have grown more skeptical of capitalism just by knowing me.

I don't have any good advice really.

For me, taking long walks always helps to center myself and emotionally stabilize. I try to have two walks of at least 20-30 minutes each day

Also, I think breaking routine by taking a trip getting a change of scenery is good. Can help see things from a new perspective.

stop being so hard on yourself, for one. There's nothing moral about being able to perform the things we're expected by ourselves and/or others to do, especially in such a sad traumatic place as this.

Think of your favorite person ever: If they confided what you said here to you, hopefully you wouldn't see them as a bad person. You'd see someone who really wants to do right and is struggling. One way that helped me process this is it's a bit individualistic to think you're worse than every other person. Give yourself the same consideration you'd give to any other person.

And speaking of individualism, we're not living in the world that would make getting by in any way easy. Capitalism is soul crushing and you are not exempt just cuz you're yourself and you expect yourself to be able to. We aren't meant to have so much individual pressure on ourselves.

You should work on liking yourself, i think. Give yourself more of a chance.

and you're not a drain on your parents. It sounds like they're fine financially and you didn't even ask to be born so you're good there ,too.

The first step in enacting change is actually WANTING it enough to make a plan to do it. I say this as an ex-heroin addict, ex-smoker, and someone who is just this year in my middle age, starting to exercise, eat right, and have lost 20 out of a needed 60 since just this past August.

Change is hard. Especially when you become complacent. But imagine your best self. Stop making excuses and start thinking of ways to do the thing. I never had rehab. I never had any nicotine patches, or gum. I never had a personal trainer. I made a plan and held myself accountable.

You at least recognize you need to change. You're adult enough to figure out what you need to do to become your ideal. Now you have to plan how to get there and eliminate any obstacles. For me, I had to stop having junkie friends. I needed other hobbies to obsess over until the immediate physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms went away. It sucked. A LOT. I taught myself IT and Cybersecurity skills so I would transition my career away from healthcare, since that was not a good environment for me. But here I am, almost 14 years clean, no drugs, no smokes, I don't smoke weed anymore either, I don't even drink anything besides water.

I read, practice my skills. I stay away from harmful addictions and focus that drive on things that will improve my life.

I look at my life 20 years ago. Homeless, addict, unhealthy, abused by my closest family. Now I'm fairly well off, own a home, no debt, stable, clean, a family of my own. I know it's cheesy to say "you can do anything if you put your mind to it". I had every odd against me for the first half of my life. I got tired of commiting a slow suicide and I did what I had to do to fix it.

you can't. you need drugs and/or therapy and good luck with that because efficacy of treatment is pretty inconsistent, western safety nets are designed to fail on purpose, and the world is fucking garbage so i don't understand how we're supposed to be anything other than horribly depressed in the face of capitalist hegemony